The blog videos of former Supreme Court Justice Scouter and current Justice Scalia highlight two ways of framing the debate over Citizens United. Scouter noted that one's constitutional freedoms are only protected up to the point that they violate someone else's. He highlights the difference between liberty versus equality approaches to freedom of speech and cautions that allowing someone the liberty to unlimited free speech (campaign spending) increases the risk that other voices might be drowned out, or others' freedom of speech may be infringed upon. Unsurprisingly, Scalia focused entirely on the liberty side of that debate - the more speech the better. It seems to me that the ruling on Citizens United (as favored and voted for by Scalia) protects wealthy individuals' and groups' freedom of speech to such an extent that the average citizen's freedom of speech may be limited, as they are unlikely to be heard through the deafening noise of wealthy interest group's advertising.
Consider the Citizen United debate in relation to the Strolovich (2006) article about the significant obstacles for disadvantaged groups to gain representation in politics and policy making. The interest group organizations that are supposed to represent disadvantaged groups often fail to do so by focusing on middle class or moderate issues rather than the more difficult issues facing the extremely disadvantaged. Additionally, individuals with multiple disadvantaged identities are rarely represented, resulting in further marginalization. Further, social and economic justice organizations make up just a small percentage of the total interest groups; and now because of the ruling on Citizens United, the organizations with the largest interest group representation (corporations and business associations) have no limit to the amount of money they can put behind their own political interests. Chapter two of Mann and Ornstein's It's Even Worse Than It Looks (2012) highlights the notable changes already evident in politics from the Citizens United decision and the staggering amounts of money flowing in to influence election outcomes and policy in Washington.
Given the vast and growing income disparities in the US, how can unlimited political spending not impede the rights of the poor, their speech, and their representation? When social justice organizations are outnumbered, out funded, and often fail to represent those who are most marginalized, how do the interests of low-income or other disadvantaged groups have a chance of being represented in political decision making today?
I really appreciated your metaphor of unlimited free speech, due to campaign financing, drowning out other voices in our democracy. The way that money influences our political process is really troublesome, even when it is transparent. Lobbyists have to disclose whom they work on behalf of. However, not all interest groups can afford them and Strovolich points out that even if they could they are less active on issues affecting disadvantage subgroups of their membership. Then there are SuperPACs that don’t have to disclose who contributes (by hiding individuals behind organizations). As the gap between rich and poor widens, I worry that we’re trapped in the cycle Verba describes: Political voice is a capability that helps people increase their education, income, health outcomes, etc., but you also need those things to have a political voice. He also describes the cycle of political disengagement in which those who are disinterested don’t believe they can affect the process, which becomes self-fulfilling. Given the amount of money needed to actually influence an election or policy change these days, I worry that middle class citizens will become more politically disengaged, much less poor and otherwise disadvantaged citizens.
I find it interesting that, despite all the time and effort policy makers put in attempting to balance power within government, the blatant power hegemony between some interest groups and government continues to perpetuate so openly without a serious challenge.
The idea that unlimited campaign contributions equates free speech is antithetical to me, except to a policy maker who is lacking in communication skills. In some ways, I think powerful interest groups have figured it out, because they are agents of change - but the change they institute has fascist tendencies. Where is the check on that? It makes sense that other institutions would be ideal to balance it. Populism makes a theoretical distinction between "selfishness" and "self-interest", with both having the potential to thrive in economically liberal democracies. However, it does not claim one or the other as an ideology, simply accepts that both exist. Institutions that promote self-interest are in a position to create more agency in the middle class and among disadvantaged groups if they can channel popular resentment into "self-interest". Easier said than done, but if the middle class, issue based organizations would focus on this distinction, they would certainly have the numbers to make up for their relative shortage of funds.
Like the rest of you, I find this political dynamic to be incredibly troubling. It seems to me that when the Court conflated monetary political contributions with free speech that it further privileged its role above other forms of political participation. Verba, for example, identifies voting, direct contact, and protest as other key activities in political participation (p.662). Thus, in siding with the liberty of political free "speech" it further diminished the equality of political participation in its many other forms. Although this is a natural and unresolvable tension according to former Justice Souter, the so-called balance that was struck on this particular case does little to quiet public concerns regarding growing inequality in our political system.